can i build software before hardware and how do i go about that ?

MMRIZE

You can build MM on any device, Windows, MacOS, any Linux Distros,
But you cannot “copy & paste” built MM to another device. (Yup… maybe Dump would be possible in some environments, but not all. Using Docker is another topic.)
Finally, you need to build your own infra of the target device.(OS setup, some configuration, WIFI setup, and so on.) Then, you have to install MM(and its dependencies like nodeJS) manually or with the help of scripts.
After that, you can copy & paste custom.css and config.js from your test environment. But maybe 3rd-party modules should be installed again by your hand.

Not as difficult as it sounds. Good luck.

sdetweil

@mumblebaj and its documented in the MM install section
https://docs.magicmirror.builders/getting-started/installation.html#other-operating-systems

UncleRoger

@mezcalbomb
Not necessarily… you can use the one RPi remotely. Before I got the second RPi, I was doing testing and setup on the main one downstairs. It worked fine. I have a browser tab open pointing to it so I can see what’s going on.

You didn’t specify what hardware you wanted to wait on – I assumed you meant you wanted to get the MM set up before you physically built the frame and such for it. If you have an old monitor, you can plug your RPi into it or you should be able to run it without a monitor and just see the MM in the browser on your main computer.

I managed to scrounge up a second RPi which means I can break stuff on it while the first one is still (relatively) functional downstairs, even though I haven’t gotten around to building a frame or mounting it on the wall. But you could still set things up with just one RPi as long as you’re not trying to put it into production before you finalize everything. (Or if you back up your settings frequently. Get Sam’s backup scripts.)

mezcalbomb

this sounds like a smart plan, then initial cost will only be cost of RPi while i try to develop a dashboard i like.

Thanks for answer.

sdetweil

@mezcalbomb and again, you can do this on your windows PC for free